Some wikis have no page locking system, so if two people edit the page simultaneously, one set of changes will be silently deleted.
Some wikis do not include a versioning system, making them inappropriate for the task.
Also, there are the social issues that occasionally crop up, particularly on very large projects such as the Wikipedia. Some pages on Wikipedia, dealing with controversial topics such as abortion or religious perspectives, can exhibit a phenomenon known as an ‘edit war’ (Wikipedia, 2006). This is the continuous editing and re-visioning of content by a community member with a particular agenda. The easiest way to circumvent such disagreements is to place a block on the page edit functionality for a period of time.
Depending on the nature of the task at hand, wiki entries may be structurally and procedurally different from standard writing tasks that students may be already used to. Therefore, it is important that teachers provide sufficient help and instruction to learners as they come to understand the requirements of the wiki writing genre, much as it is important in standard academic practice to teach the genre of academic essays to students who will be required to write such essays for assessment.
Wiki Challenges